Oct 29, 2010 16:44 GMT  ·  By

A number of 40,101 individuals, who attented the University of Hawaii (UH), are being notified that their personal and educational information has been compromised.

The vast majority of affected inviduals attended University of Hawaii at Manoa between 1990 and 1998, as well as in 2001.

A much smaller number of students, who attended University of Hawaii at West Oahu during the fall of 1994, or who graduated between 1988 and 1993, was also impacted.

The breach was the result of unencrypted files being left on a publicly accessible Web server by a now retired UH West Oahu faculty member.

The faculty member worked in the Institutional Research Office (IRO) and was conducting a longitudinal study of UH students.

The files, which were uploaded on November 30, 2009, were discovered by the Liberty Coalition, a Washington D.C.-based civil rights watchdog.

According to the the organization, the files were found during a Google search and the university took them offline without hours of being alerted.

The documents contained the names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers, but also extensive demographic and academic performance data.

This includes details like gender, ethnicity, marital status, home language, children, citizenship, employment, financial aid status, disabilities, source of college funds, place of residence and much more.

"Different files had different information on some of the individuals, but it is believed that the aggregation of the exposed files could allow matching to create the potential for identity theft, which is highly unlikely to occur," the University of Hawaii said in an announcement published on its website.

When contacted by the Liberty Coalition, the faculty member responsible for the breach also revealed that he downloaded files with similar data to his home computer for easier access.

Both the FBI and the Honolulu Police Department have been alerted of the breach and the University is in the process of conducting its own internal investigation.